Last night Jena and I went to the 2011-12 Minneapolis Comedy Death Squad Awards and I’m proud to say this little blog won the “best blog / vlog” award. Thanks to everybody who voted!

Finally! An award I can never show my grandmother.

The latest addition to my family of Reapie awards. No big deal.

After we got home I gave our friend Kaia (who was kind enough to babysit) a ride home. After I dropped her off and helped her get her things out of my car I started driving back home but forgot to turn my headlights back on (YES MY CAR IS SO OLD THE HEADLIGHTS DON’T JUST TURN ON AUTOMATICALLY LEAVE ME ALONE I’M POOR). After just a block and a half of headlightless driving a cop pulled me over. I’ve stated before that I’m pathologically scared of cops so getting pulled over is always a shitstorm of anxiety but I tried to calm myself by reminding myself that I was probably just going to get a warning. My license was valid, the tabs were up to date, I was insured, everything was on the up and up. The cop asked for my license and insurance and went back to his car. He came back in less than a minute later. I figured the cop realized he had more important things to do than give some jackass who forgot to turn on his headlights a panic attack. That’s when the cop told me I had a bench warrant for a moving violation from last year and that he would have to take me to jail.

The cop gave me a couple of minutes to make a phone call before he handcuffed me so I tried to call Jena. No answer and I can’t leave a voicemail since we use the google voice service so it’s like we have the same voicemail for different numbers or something. I typed up a text that said “Going to jail. Warrant. Be home late. For the love of god turn your ringer on” and gave the cop my cell phone. One quick ride later we end up at the garage entrance to the jail waiting behind a Minnetonka cop car.



Note to suburban cops; city cops totally shit talk you when you’re not listening.



We head into an underground garage and the cops that arrested me totally cut in front of the suburban cops. The driver said “whelp, looks like we’re going first!” and brought me into a room with about a half dozen deputies standing around. One of them was weaing rubber gloves. He was to be my dance partner for the next two minutes.



I thought I’ve been patted down before. Going to certain music venues and airports I was all too familiar with a process that I was told was “patting down” but all those times I may as well have been given a high five for how noninvasive those pat downs were compared to this cop’s pat down. This man patted. Me. Down. Nothing was unexplored. I can now confirm that there are no weapons or drugs in my taint or buttcrack. I think he’s my boyfriend now. I’m a little pissed he hasn’t called but I don’t want to seem desperate. My shoes were taken and I was told to swap out my pants for some stylish orange sweats in a bathroom.

In the bathroom I noticed there was the “toilet without a seat” and realized that I needed to shit but I figured I’d have to ask permission first so I changed and they took me to a small (probably 4X8?) cell. After watching the half dozen cops stand around for ten minutes I realized I probably wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon and needed to go to the bathroom. I pressed the call button on the intercom in the cell and a voice said “go ahead”.
“Hey, I hate to be a bother but I really need to go to the bathroom. Can that happen, please?”
“Everybody on duty is pretty busy right now so it may take a minute”.
I looked through the glass wall and saw the half dozen cops chatting away. Five minutes later the voice from my little intercom boomed through the big intercom in the room “Oh hey the guy in 14 needs to use the bathroom if anybody has a minute”. One of the cops escorted me to the bathroom where I changed.

30 seconds after sitting on the toilet it started flushing. I didn’t move. I didn’t touch anything. It just flushed. It did it again a minute later. After I was done I tried to find a lever to flush it manually but there was none. I went to the sink to wash my hands but there was no switch or button for the faucet. I waved my hands around, thinking there was a sensor. No luck. I started pushing and twisting at different parts of the sink but no water came. I poked my head out the door and asked “Hey, is the sink like a puzzle or is there-”
“That’s enough. Come on out.”
I still don’t know how those sinks work.



After some processing and mugshotting I was escorted to a larger, open cell with one other guy in it. The place was filthy. The floor and benches were covered in half eaten sandwiches, bread crusts and apple cores. While waiting around I noticed that there were a ton of bread crusts. Like, almost everybody who ate there earlier tore the crusts off their sandwiches. I pointed that out to the other guy in the cell. “Do you think there’s a connection? Like, if you tear the crusts off your sandwich you’re 40% more likely to be a criminal?” He told me I shouldn’t base my PhD thesis off of it.



For about a half an hour it was just me and this other guy in the cell. He was older, maybe in his 50s. Short, thin, grey hair. I wanted to ask him. Of course I wanted to ask him. How do you not ask? It’s so easy. Just four little words. “What did you do?”. I went over the different ways I could ask him. I wanted to seem cool but not that I was trying to look like I’m cool. I blurted out “So how did you end up in here?” and immediately regretted it. The guy actually looked at me for a second, turned away and said “Because there’s nobody out there.” I honestly thought he would start fading away at that moment, like a fog. I’d reach out to touch him but there was soon nothing there. I’d call out to the guard and ask where my cellmate went and the guard would look at me, puzzled, and say “Sir, you’ve been the only one in that cell all night”.



After a full computer scan of my hand and five sets of old fashioned fingerprints, I was allowed to call Jena and put into a different cell with more people. One guy started barking at me and immediately apologized, saying he hasn’t had his meds. The other guy started complaining about how uncomfortable the concrete bench was, saying that it was like they were trying to make us uncomfortable. Crazy bark guy agreed, saying the place was “twisting up my insides like a fork twisting spaghetti”. I said “Yeah, I’m totally giving these guys a bad review on Yelp”. There was total silence until the not crazy guy said “man, what’s yelp?” and I explained what it was and there was more silence. Five minutes later a couple of the guards were talking. One said “I can’t believe how many people complain about this place! ‘Uhh, this sucks, can’t you go faster? It’s cold in here!’ Seriously, if you hate it here so much than don’t get arrested”. I stuck my head out the door and said “Oh this place is definitely getting a terrible review from me on Yelp” and the guards laughed. I turned to my cellmates and said “See? It’s funny if you get the reference!”



Long story short (word count so far, 1372), my wonderful, smart, talented, beautiful sister who is also an amazing public speaker came with her rugged yet dapper husband and they bailed me out for $50. I got home a little before 5AM (arrested a little after midnight) and Jena greeted me at the door and hugged me. I leaned down and whispered in her ear “I was prison raped”. She looked up at me and said “were you even in there long enough to get raped?”
“What? How long do you think rape takes? It’s not like there’s foreplay involved.”



Thanks to the Minneapolis Police Department for keeping threats like me off the streets.